Red K
by ftlow
Summary: Alex and Kara have always had a complex relationship. The red kryptonite simplifies it, though, doesn't it? It says all the things they can't.


Alex's heart dropped as she saw Kara - her Kara - standing with one hand on her cocked hip, showing off a skintight black outfit, her eye make up heavy.

"Hello, _sister_," she drawled. The hair on the back of Alex's neck stood up as she took in the look, head to toe. "Look; I picked out my own outfit without any fashion advice from _you_."

Alex skirted the edge of the room as Kara stepped forward, her shoulders back and arms by her sides. She wouldn't have admitted it aloud, but she'd never been more scared of her sister than in that moment, as she spoke in those cold tones, looking so unlike herself.

"All these years you've pushed those dowdy sweaters and skirts on me," Kara continued derisively. Alex swallowed. "Trying to cloak my beauty, so I don't outshine yours."

* * *

_"Alex," Kara whispered into the darkness of their shared bedroom. _

_Alex sighed. "What, Kara? It's late."_

_"I know, I'm sorry, I just… there's something I don't understand."_

_Alex sighed again and reached for her lamp. Kara had been on earth for almost a year and they were beginning to find their rhythm; Alex was finally beginning to enjoy having a sister._

_"Go on," she encouraged, propping herself up on her pillows._

_Kara shuffled closer to the circle of golden light from the lamp._

_"A lot of the girls have boyfriends," she began. _

_"Oh, no, I am _not_ having this conversation," Alex interrupted._

_"No, it's not _that_," Kara hurried to reassure her. "It's just… well… I wondered why you don't."_

_There was a long silence. In moments like these - where most people would fill the silence, apologise, cover up the moment - Alex was reminded with stark clarity that Kara was from a different planet._

_"I… I don't know what anyone would see in me," she murmured finally. "And I'm not really looking."_

_Kara frowned at her. "You're extraordinarily intelligent, and incredibly kind, and from what I've seen of the human race, inordinately beautiful, Alex. Not looking is one thing but anyone you did look at would be lucky to have you."_

_Alex rolled her eyes. "I do okay in science. I've been pretty frosty with you, so I'm not that kind. And anyone who might have been interested in me is distracted by my perfect sister, whose hair is never out of place, who has never had a single spot or pimple, and whose figure is and will always be completely flawless. I don't stand a chance next to you."_

_She turned over and reached for her light, snapping it off abruptly._

_It made her feel better, even if Kara could still see with her x-ray vision._

* * *

_It was two years since she'd lost her father - since _they'd _lost _their_ father. Two years without him. Although Kara hadn't known him as long, although he wasn't really her blood, Alex thought she must attribute some of the pain of losing her own family to losing him. She'd never really mourned when she reached earth; but now, after Jeremiah's death and on each anniversary, she'd shown her pain._

_It had annoyed her at first. Jeremiah was _her_ father, not Kara's, and he was gone because of her._

_But they were finally finding each other again._

_It was the day after the anniversary. Alex had persuaded Kara to come with her to a house party, and they were trying on outfits._

_"There, you look great," Alex told her, smiling widely at her sister._

_Kara scowled down at her heeled shoes, the form-fitting backless dress clinging beautifully to her hips, stopping well above her knees and showing off shapely legs._

_"I feel exposed."_

_"Kara, come on. You have rock-hard abs and you eat six times as much as I do. Flaunt what you have."_

_She shook her head obstinately. "This isn't me, Alex. I wear comfy clothes. And why should I get to show off a figure I didn't work for? It's unfair to the genuinely beautiful people out there."_

_Alex shrugged. "Have it your way," she murmured._

_Kara went to the party in jeans and a light, floaty sleeveless blouse. Alex wore the dress she'd turned down._

* * *

The high-pitched whine of heat vision, the sudden crackle of flames, and the chilling laugh Kara emitted left Alex shaking as she ran for the kitchen, trembling hands pulling at the cupboard door and reaching for the fire extinguisher. The jitters in her hands passed over into her words, and she stumbled through an explanation for her sister's behaviour, relieved that she let her get it all out -

"Oh, I see clearly," Kara spat out, turning to face her. "I see how you've always been jealous of me. You didn't want me to come out as Supergirl because you didn't want me to own my powers."

Alex, disturbed by Kara's wide-eyed, unblinking expression, shook her head, turning slightly away to blink as her throat worked to find an answer.

"I can _fly_," Kara taunted gently, before slowly stalking closer, still unblinking, eyes flickering from one of Alex's to the other, a grotesque version of her sister's lovely smile stretched across her lips. "I can catch bullets with my bare hands. And that makes you feel _worthless_."

Supergirl's lip curled and she turned away, ignoring the way Alex was minutely shaking her head, striding to the window.

"No," Alex insisted, following her. "No, I'm proud of you."

* * *

_"Come on, Alex. You could tutor me. You showed me up in class today. I don't _like_ history, but I need to pass it."_

_"No, Kara. You're smart. You can study yourself. I've worked hard to get where I am and I'm trying to keep it that way, even though I'm stuck with _you_. The last thing I need is for my grades to drop."_

_Kara blinked. "I… I don't…" she swallowed. "Fine," she said, with a hint of bite to her tone. "Fine. But next time you show me up in class, you don't have to rub it in."_

_She turned to leave, but Alex's hand landed on her shoulder. _

_"You show me up every day," she whispered harshly. "I have worked so hard for this, and you float in from outer space and just pick up my best subjects like they're the easiest thing in the world. How do you understand science, and maths, hm? The two things I was good at, and you've taken them from me. And you use your unfair advantage to beat me in sport, too."_

_Alex released her shoulder and stormed away._

_Kara chewed her lip, watching uneasily._

* * *

_Alex stopped in the doorway and leaned against the frame, watching as Kara carefully rolled the telescope up in bubble wrap._

_"I'm proud of you," she said softly. "I'm sorry it took Kenny dying to snap me out of my funk."_

_Kara squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the packaged scope under her bed. "I failed," she said flatly. "I should have heard something that night. I should have helped him. I should have saved him."_

_"Kara, you're not infallible. You saved me."_

_"It's not enough, Alex! I lost my entire _planet_, and then I lost you your father, and now I've lost the first person on earth who knew what I was capable of and didn't care. _He liked me anyway_, Alex. Everything I touch turns to ash."_

_Alex stood helplessly as Kara's anger smouldered visibly inside her, glowing around her eyes. She blinked it furiously away._

_"I'm done using my powers. I'm done with failing all the time. I'll find my own way to help people. I'm not a superhero. If I was a superhero…I'd have saved Jeremiah."_

_Kara's face crumpled, but no tears leaked out._

_"From now on, I have no powers."_

_There was a moment's heavy silence, and then Alex stepped into the room and held out her arms._  
_"I'm proud of you, Kara," she repeated quietly. _

_Kara stepped, slowly, into her embrace._

* * *

Kara, still facing away from Alex, cut off her words and her thoughts, speaking loudly. "And then when you couldn't stop me being Supergirl, you got me to work for you." She turned back to face Alex, eyes heavy with liner and painted lips twisted. "To retain some control." She scoffed, sneering. "Those days are so over," she whispered, and then - venom and volume in her voice - she announced, "I am finally free of you."

Alex stared, blinking rapidly, as Kara turned, finished her journey to the window, and pulled it open. "And I am ready to soar," she murmured.

For a moment, she surveyed the view, and Alex felt her heart beat a double as she let herself believe - for a split second - that her Kara was back, that she'd snapped out of her mood.

But then, Kara spoke again. "Look at that city. They worship me. And those who don't…will."

* * *

_"Kara, listen to me. For everyone who thinks your powers make you special, there is someone who believes your powers make you a target. A freak. A threat. You _can't_ tell anyone, okay? You can't."_

_Eliza's grip on Kara's shoulders would be bordering on painful if Kara wasn't Kryptonian. Alex watched from the doorway. Kara had been with them for just a few short months, and although Alex hated the pressure her parents put her under to watch over the alien, she found herself - somehow - liking the girl._

_"Okay, I- I won't," Kara agreed, shaken._

_"School isn't going to be easy, sweetheart, but you have to try," Eliza told her, patting her shoulders and smoothing out her shirt. "Go on, now. Go and pack your bag for the morning."_

_Kara turned away, walking slowly over to Alex, head down and not meeting her eyes._

_They made it upstairs in silence, and then Alex silently pulled her into a hug._

_"I don't think your powers make you special or a threat, Kara. What's important is that you're kind, and gentle, and loving."_

_Kara tightened her hold. "I don't want to ever prove them right. I never want to use my powers for anything bad, or to make people feel less. It's just biology."_

_Alex smiled and propped her chin on her sister's head. "I know. So let school kids judge you for you. Not what you can do."_

* * *

_They were fighting again. Alex always started it, but if she was being honest, she was getting tired of it. _

_It was just easier to fight with Kara, blame Kara for everything that had gone wrong, than let herself cry over it._

_She was Alex Danvers, protector of the Kryptonian, and she _didn't_ cry. Not even when her dad died._

_Kara did, though. She was crying now, silently._

_"Oh come on, Kara. It was years ago, and you can't change it."_

_Kara shook her head. "I know," she murmured. "That doesn't mean I don't miss it."_

_Alex scoffed. "Because we're not good enough for you? Do you need more than just little old Midvale, and us? Does the great Kara Zor-El need her Super family?"_

_Kara clenched her jaw and Alex immediately regretted it. _

_"No, Alex," she snapped. "What I need is a planet that I understand, a planet where I am normal, not a freak that can fly and never gets hurt. What I need is a family who love me unconditionally, and where my life doesn't revolve around these stupid powers I'm not allowed to have. What I need is a hug from my mother."_

_She turned away, burrowing into her pillow, back to the room, and Alex dug her fingernails into her palm, suddenly guilty._

_"I-I'm sorry, Kara," she murmured._

_That was the day that she stopped shutting her sister out. It took them a long time to get on again, but Alex stuck up for her at school when someone else got in her face. It was progress._

* * *

"Kara, just listen to yourself-" Alex began, knowing Kara didn't want her powers to be all she was, knowing she only wanted to use them for good, but Kara cut her off, whipping her head around, hair fluttering in the breeze, anger in every minute part of her expression and colouring every word.

"Oh, cut the big sister act, Alex. We have never been sisters, we don't share blood."

Alex felt the words cut through her like a burning blade.

* * *

_"I'm so proud of you, Alex."_

_Alex blinked down at her grades, and tried very hard to ignore the stab of disappointment at the one - maths - that was just a touch lower than she'd worked for._

Kenny_. He'd died before they'd made it to the hardest part of the course. He'd been _murdered_._

_Alex's anger broke through._

_"You don't get to be proud of me, Kara. You're younger than me, and you're not my sister."_

_She threw her letter on the kitchen table and stormed out. _

_No doubt Kara's grades were perfect. _

_It took Kara two hours to pluck up the courage to follow her up the stairs. She didn't speak, just perched on the edge of her bed and patted her shoulder gently. Alex shrugged her off._

_Kara sighed. "I thought we agreed, after Kenny, to stop wasting time?"_

_Alex ignored her. _

_"Alex, I don't understand what I did. I thought we were okay now."_

_Alex sighed, and sat up, hugging her knees. "So did I," she admitted. "But I'm sick of playing second fiddle. I'm sick of being one behind you all the time. And you being better at everything, and then having the gall to be proud of me - no, Kara. We're not blood. You don't get to be proud of me."_

_Kara swallowed, and stood abruptly. She dropped her own letter onto the bed and disappeared out of the door, faster than Alex's eyes could follow._

_Alex picked up her sister's grades and squinted at them._

_They weren't anywhere near as good as hers._

* * *

_Alex was worried. Four years from Kara landing on earth, the sisters were inseparable. College was looming and Alex was pushing Kara to go, pushing against her every time she suggested they _didn't_ go, but she secretly hated the thought of being separated from her sister just as much as Kara did. She hated the idea of being away from her, and not only because she wouldn't be able to protect her the _next_ time she caused a rockfall by clapping - but because she'd genuinely miss her._

_Kara, though, seemed to have come around to the idea._

_"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Alex checked again as they each reached for a new box to pack clothes into._

_"College? Sure. It's a very human thing to do," Kara brushed off._

_She was becoming more and more blasé about the whole alien thing._

_"I mean it, Kara, I'm worried about you. Are you going to be okay, hiding… you know…?"_

_"I'm quite capable of surviving without you for a few months, Alex! Seriously, do you think I'm a baby or something? I'm more than twenty years older than you! You're not my protective big sister, that's just how we have to act, but guess what? Now we both get some freedom!"_

_Kara dropped what she was holding into the box and superspeeded out of the door._

_Alex stared after her, swallowing a lump in her throat._

_It took Kara less than three hours to come back, apologise, and hold her, and Alex knew she was just pushing her away before they were forced apart. _

_It didn't make it hurt any less._

* * *

Kara turned fully around to face her again, speaking softly all of a sudden.

"And you know what the sad truth is?" She asked gently, a pitying smile on her lips. "Without me, you have no life. And that _kills_ you. Deep down, you hate me."

Alex's eyes were soft, full of tears. She hated that she could hear the truth in Kara's words.

Her sister's face suddenly became less kind.

"And that's why you killed my aunt."

Alex's breath caught. A tear spilled over.

Kara's voice became cruel, mocking. Alex averted her eyes.

"Aww, did I make you cry? You know what they say. The truth hurts."

* * *

"Did I kill anyone?"

Alex knew she was waking up. She knew the sun table and sun lamps were working, and she was ready for her sister's voice.

She wasn't ready for the vulnerability in the question, or even the question itself.

"No," she hurried to reassure her. "No, you didn't kill anyone."

She couldn't make herself sound any more cheerful. She wondered idly if Kara thought killing was inherently bad, if she thought Alex was bad. Then she wondered if red kryptonite could affect her too.

* * *

_Alex was curled on her sofa. She was supposed to be at Kara's tonight - in about five minutes, actually. She was still working on an excuse that her sister would believe. She was failing._

_Today, she'd been on her third mission. She'd fought well - Hank had told her so. She was a good marksman, too, and she'd caught one of the aliens in the thigh, stopping him from getting away but not causing any lasting damage._

_His wife, who was fighting tooth and razor-sharp nail and who had already killed two agents, was shaking, terrified, ducking and weaving as she sought to get herself to safety._

_Alex's bullet caught her in the chest. _

_He'd howled, an unearthly, inhuman sound, watching as she dropped instantly to the ground, greenish blood soaking the tarmac around her._

_"Your first kill," Tom had congratulated her later, clapping her on the shoulder. "First one's always the worst. At least it was an alien, though. Your first person will be much harder."_

_And Alex had somehow doubted that very much._

_How could she look her sister in the eye, knowing that today, she'd _killed_ someone? _

_How had she gone from taking her Hippocratic oath to taking away a life?_

* * *

Kara's face crumpled as Alex explained her sling and she turned away. Alex's eyebrows drew together as she watched her sister fall apart, a dull ache pulsing along her humerus. She clenched her jaw as the tears threatened, her sister's sobs echoing.

She'd never seen Kara fall apart like this. Not when Jeremiah had died, not when Kenny had died. Never. If she cried, she cried silently, apologetically.

"It was so horrible, Alex," Kara cried, a hand over her eyes.

_Of course, she sobs when it's about her,_ Alex caught herself thinking.

She mentally slapped herself, hard.

_She didn't break down like this when she lost her entire planet. She's breaking down because she caused people pain._

Alex shook herself, watching detachedly as a tear leaked out of the eye closest to her.

"I couldn't stop it." _She felt powerless_, Alex realised. Not powerless as in without her powers, but powerless as in out of control - and that must be _so much_ scarier when you're capable of doing so much damage.

* * *

"_Kara?" Alex found her missing, new, sister lying on the grass in the middle of the field next to their house. "What are you doing?"_

_She sat down next to the curled-up ball of Kryptonian, and watched in concern as she shook, her eyes wide open and staring._

_"Kara, what's wrong?"_

_She shook her head frantically, eyes tracking from one star to the next._

_"Hey. Talk to me."_

_There was a moment of silence. "I- I can't go back there," Kara whispered._

_Alex followed her gaze to a lighter patch of night sky, where the stars were scattered over a swirl of less deep blue._

_"To space? You don't need to."_

_"The Phantom Zone," Kara murmured almost reverently._

_Alex reached out slowly and took Kara's hand from where it was clenched tightly around her knees. She waited for her sister to tear her eyes from the heavens and look at her._

_"You're here, now. You can watch the birds, and how high they fly without leaving the planet. You can walk through wide open spaces. You don't have to go back there."_

_Kara swallowed and nodded, glancing upwards one last time._

_"I was stuck in that pod for so long," she whispered. "So many years, watching everything else move on. I slept for some of it. I waited for the rest. There's no time in the Phantom Zone, and I just sat there in that tiny pod, in the silence."_

_Suddenly, a few of Alex's questions about Superman were answered._

_"When were you born?" She asked quietly._

_ Kara swallowed. "In your time, 1966."_

_Alex whistled. "Looking good for it," she teased lightly. "Come on. There's no need to be scared of small spaces or quiet moments now. You're one of the most powerful people on this planet. You're in control of where you are and what you're doing."_

_Kara, slowly, relaxed. Her shy smile was answered with one of Alex's own._

* * *

Kara took a shaky breath, as if bracing herself for something, and then turned her head towards Alex, her face almost immediately crumpling again. "I didn't mean it," she tried, body wracking with silent sobs. "I didn't mean what I said to you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for what I said."

Alex's heart broke with her sister's words, her sobs. Even in the midst of her early panics, soon after she'd landed, she'd never broken down like this.

But now, Alex felt like Kara had looked then. Inside was turmoil. On the surface, she was calm, and put-together.

"Kara, you're my sister," she said calmly. "And I love you. No matter what."

She reached out, wiping away the tear she'd watched roll down Kara's face earlier. Feeling the wetness of it - feeling how _human_ Kara was when she cried - broke something inside of her. Her own tears began to form, and a well of shame rose up within her.

"But there's some truth to what you said," she admitted gently. She avoided Kara's eyes as she focused on not crying, her eyebrows drawing together. "We're gonna have to work on that."

* * *

And they did. They talked through so many parts of life that they'd brushed under the carpet. They reflected on old memories and picked them apart. Kara told Alex all about her life on Krypton, and what the Black Mercy had showed her, and Alex told her about life before she'd crash-landed on earth.

Between them, they found a rhythm. They found a closeness beyond what they thought they'd had before.

They found they needed one another, but they didn't resent that.

And for all Alex hated Maxwell Lord for creating red kryptonite, for all Kara hated who she'd hurt under its influence - they both grew to appreciate what it had done for their relationship in the long-term.

Red kryptonite wasn't the end of their relationship, nor even the start, but it was the catalyst for so much to come.

It took them years to understand it, years to unpick who they were with and without one another. Alex coming out was a huge step, a huge realisation of how much of herself revolved around Kara and how much she had ignored and buried while she focused on her sister.

But the biggest realisation was when Alex's memories returned by themselves. They could see, then, who Alex was without Kara. And if she was honest with herself, that version of Alex was one that the true Alex didn't much like.

She liked the Alex that had her Kara, her alien sister. For all the bad things that had happened to them and between them, that was who she was supposed to be; that was who she wanted to be.


End file.
